The worst thing about living with cats...

... is having to say goodbye.

In memoriam:

Max, 1999-2012

Napalm, 1998-2013

april 9 is love a cat day

Here at the keew household I have declared April 9 annual Love A Cat day.

It's been one year since one of the awesomest cats ever, Xavier, passed away. Rather than being sad about it, I've decided to celebrate his memory by spreading and encouraging a little extra cat love. (though feel free to include in the affection any dogs or other critters you come across today as well)

Love A Cat day is also a good excuse to highlight some cats in particular need of love and some of the organizations making an effort to help them. (other recommendations welcome)

Close to home, the Burlington Humane Society is a no-kill shelter for cats and dogs. I happily volunteered there for a short time when I had the chance, and I can attest to the quality of care and attention the animals receive until they find humans to bond with and take them home. All the cats (and dogs) available for adoption are profiled on BHS's website, but you can also go and visit them in person during operating hours. Besides donating volunteer hours and cash, you can also help out BHS by shopping in or donating to either of their two volunteer-run second-hand stores.

A few years ago I worked in a Waterloo Pet Valu location where we regularly fostered cats and kittens who were looking for homes. The organization we partnered with is still in operation - a KW-based cat rescue and adoption group called Pet Patrol, though now they also have a website profiling all their adoptable felines. The cats that came into the store were always well cared for and I got a chance to visit Pet Patrol headquarters while profiling cat rescue groups for local alternative weekly Echo. Founding volunteer Jan rescued and adopted out numerous cats, providing clean and healthy accommodations for them in her own home or finding foster care with other caring volunteers.

While living in St. Catharines I also had a chance to get involved, in the tiniest of ways, with local organization Niagara Action for Animals. NAfA has a much broader animal protection mandate but their actions include adoption and spay-and-neuter programs for companion animals (as well as a monthly vegan potluck social). Checkout Petfinder for info on NAfA-connected adoption-ready animals.

Several years ago, through the yearly Vegetarian Food Fair in Toronto, I also discovered Toronto Cat Rescue, another volunteer-run, no-kill organization dedicated to finding homes for homeless cats. Like many similar groups, Toronto Cat Rescue features photos and descriptions on their website of cats who are up for adoption.

These are just a few of the groups in Southern Ontario that are involved in spreading a little cat love. I thank them for their hard work and encourage you to show them a little love and support too.

virtual musicians: bringing back musical personalities from the dead

From Wired... this is a little neat and a little creepy – re-creations of a dead musician's distinctive performance style through computer technology:

Virtual Musicians, Real Performances: How Artificial Intelligence Is Changing Music

My tech geek side likes the idea of re-performances, the possibilities for hearing things that should have been performed and recorded, and so on. But the cynic (and paranoiac) in me cringes at the use of dead musicians' style as a cheesy gimmick or advertising hook, and the idea of copyrighting and licensing a performance flavour is really distasteful. If you read the Wired story, you'll see I'm not alone here. On top of it all, the dystopian sf fan in me imagines musicians being kept semi-/digitally alive like Dixie Flatline in Neuromancer and feels a little ill at the prospect.

So how do we use this technological potential without turning it into another tool for corporate control over creativity? Or use it respectfully without turning dead artists into caricatures of themselves? Any ideas?

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side note: If you share your life with a pet or six, unless it's as long-lived as a tortoise, you're going to have to deal with animal mortality sooner or later – preferably later. I was hoping our next encounter with later was still a long ways away, but these things always loom sooner than you'd ever want.

If this blog is inspired, in part, by the seven cats I have shared my life with – four living with us now, two passed on, and one moved on to another family – this post is dedicated to one sick little cat who is very close to my heart. This AI stuff makes me wonder, would I hang onto him as a virtual kitty if I could? And I think no, that wouldn't be hanging on but starting a new relationship with a new different kind of cat, however closely he was related to the furry critter that was.

manipulative cats and music-loving chimps

You might have seen the stories about this a couple of weeks ago... Scientific American and a few other news venues reported on research telling us what most cat owners already know: that cats manipulate us with their purrs and their meows. Here's two SA podcast transcripts on the subject:

• manipulative cats
• coercive cats

This other tidbit is newer - research involving a young chimp suggests we may be biologically inclined to prefer consonance over dissonance in musical sounds. The chimp repeatedly chose to listen to consonant passages in preference to dissonance, and because of her lack of previous exposure to music, researchers feel this demonstrates that musical taste is not a uniquely human trait. It's not universal though - related tests with birds and monkeys have shown their ability to differentiate between consonance and dissonance, but no preference one way or the other.

The article mentions finding similar preferences to the chimp's in human babies - many years ago I unintentionally discovered babies' discriminating musical ears... I was trying to distract a crying baby by playing guitar and singing to her but I was on edge (she had powerful lungs) and though the music seemed to help, if I hit a sour note she just wailed all the louder. No surprise that she's gone on to be a musician herself (and producing much fewer sour notes than me).